..Movie Reviews..

She ends up pregnant and is ostracized by Bible thumper Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore) and joins the Christian school's outcasts: Hilary Faye's less-than-faith-full wheelchair-bound brother, Roland (Macaulay Culkin), and the school's rebel and lone Jew, Cassandra (Eva Amurri). Throw into the mix an adulterer-wannabe principal who's down with G-O-D and the skater, hottie, and principal's son, Patrick (Patrick Fugit) and you have an interesting plot.

Writer and director Brian Dannelly has said again and again that the movie is not out to bash Christianity. But he does find value in humor and takes a number of playful jabs at stereotypical Christian behavior, which is right on and hilarious.

While some will be turned off by the religious humor, it's a minor issue in this movie. The bigger issue is the movie's stance on faith, which Dannelly and many of the actors claim is pro-faith. But the question is whose faith?

The movie ends in a wish-wash of all-embracing 'believe what you want to believe' faith. The movie raises powerful questions about hypocrisy, judgment, love, and sin. But the only answer it offers is that everything is gray. While life is complicated and there are no easy answers � how do you address homosexuality and teen pregnancy � it's another thing to condone actions with blanket forgiveness.

My biggest complaint with Saved! is that while it raises tremendous questions about Christianity, it lets viewers wallow in the humorous jabs and mockery, be content with a relative truth and a cheap grace, and not face up to the truly difficult questions. If you think Christians are hypocrites it shows you a few to laugh at and lets you be content with that.

In the end, I struggle with whether or not to recommend Saved!. I liked the movie. I've never laughed so hard in the theater (probably because so few comedies will touch religion, leaving a gold mine of unheard jokes). There were some painful, truthful jabs at Christianity, and I appreciated those. But in the end the movie didn't live up to its potential. The film's acceptance of sin and refusal to deal with the gray areas of life is just as wrong as the stereotypical rejection and condemnation of Bible-thumpers.

Saved! is a ground-breaking movie for presenting difficult questions of faith while making people laugh at the same time. But it's not a movie worthy of a rubber stamp acceptance and two thumbs up. It's a movie that promotes and requires a lot of dialogue to process and understand what it's really saying.

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Some of the details of the movie are especially interesting. Writer and director Brian Dannelly commented on my blog and I was able to have a brief conversation with him about the film. He noted a number of things, including:

• He called it a "punk rock Christian movie" and a "John Hughes film with subversive undertones."
• He compared the potential for controversy to Big Fat Greek Wedding, which didn't offend Greeks.
• He noted that they had a Christian advisor on set to make sure nothing was over the line. The cast also went to Christian events as research. Dannelly made it clear that the movie "never makes fun of Jesus."
• He did say the "Billy Graham's won't like it" and in general 24-25 year old guys don't like the movie (I'm a 24-25 year old guy).
• It's been noted that Christian band the Elms was supposed to perform in the prom scene, but dropped out at the last minute. As a result, there's a comment earlier in the film referring to the Elms that couldn't be changed � it wasn't meant as a slam on the band. According to Dannelly, the Elms dropped out due to pressure from their record label.
• Dannelly himself says he was saved at 17, but lost faith after 9/11 and the war in Iraq. He told me he "just recently found it again," but he told the Chicago Sun-Times that lately "my religion is kindness and personal responsibility."

Official Movie Site

Interview with Brian Dannelly - Christianity Today interviews the writer and director about faith in the movie.

Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin Get 'Saved!' in Evangelical Comedy - An MTV news piece giving an overview, including a few choice quotes:

Patrick Fugit: "When I read the script, with Pastor Skip using all of those Ebonics, everyone waving their hands and Hilary Faye always like, 'Praise Jesus,' I was like, 'This is way over the top!' Then we went to a youth rally and learned that the movie actually downplays it,"

Jena Malone: "I got saved three different times just to see what it was like."

Jena Malone: "It's important to question what you believe � religiously, with the government, everything � when you're young. You need a lot of strength but you come out better from doing it."

'Saved!' tackles faith through teenagers' eyes - The Chicago Sun-Times tackles the movie and offers more good quotes:

Jena Malone: "Belief is a very beautiful and powerful thing. But because it is such a powerful thing, it can be really manipulative and destructive as well. ... [Dannelly] has a great respect for people who have faith, and he has a great respect for religion. What he wanted to expose were the people who sort of manipulate it, or take certain things for granted, or don't understand what their faith means to them or how it affects others."

Tim Bednar's Interview with the Director

Jena Malone: Diss Belief - An MTV interview with Malone that's more fluff than substance, though she again affirms the movie as pro-faith.

Jerry Falwell slams the film as another example of Hollywood's anti-Christian bias (never mind that the film was really an independent movie made by a first-time director and Hollywood outsider).